Photos in Book on Shipwreck Upset Families of the Victims

AP

Published: November 5, 1995

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich., Nov. 4—
A marine explorer's decision to include pictures of the underwater remains of a crewman killed in the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck in a 20th anniversary book and video has some family members of victims fuming.

The explorer, Fred Shannon, is releasing the book and video next week to mark the sinking of the 729-foot ore carrier during a gale on Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975. Twenty-nine men died in the sinking, and some of their family members say Mr. Shannon's project intrudes on their memory.

Personally, I feel the man is morally bankrupt," said Beth Blasucci of Pacific Palisades, Calif., whose father, John McCarthy, was the ship's first mate. "He must know the emotional turmoil he has put people through."

Mr. Shannon acknowledged that using the pictures would upset some people. But he said he concluded that the pictures of the remains offered clues as to how and why the ship sank and were essential to telling the story.

He stressed that two photographs in the 256-page book and one minute of footage in a 50-minute videotape showed only a small portion of one partly decomposed body. The face is not visible, so identification is impossible, he said.

"We computer-enhanced or varied the images to show what we want people to see, yet protected the identity of the human remains," Mr. Shannon said.

The body's torso is partly covered with what appears to be a life jacket, Mr. Shannon said. That, he said, bolsters his theory that the ship broke apart and sank gradually, giving the crewmen time to don jackets and try to escape.

A more commonly accepted theory is that the ship, which had taken on water as it was battered by 30-foot waves, nose-dived into a huge wave and slammed into the lake bottom, where it broke in two.

James Cairns, deputy chief coroner for the Canadian province of Ontario, said he saw the videotape while investigating Mr. Shannon's discovery last year. The shipwreck is near the border, about 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point, Mich.

Even if the face were shown, Mr. Cairns said, "there is no way you could identify this individual" without retrieving the body and performing scientific tests.

Whether the body is recognizable or not makes no difference to Cheryl Rozman of Gwinn, whose father, Ransom (Ray) Cundy, was a watchman aboard the Fitzgerald.

"I can't believe he's doing this to us," she said. "That is my dad's grave, and it should be respected."

Ms. Rozman has led a group seeking to have the shipwreck declared off-limits to future dives.

"You don't go digging up graves on land here, looking at bodies, taking pictures," she said. "There's laws against that and there should be laws protecting an underwater grave site."

Jack Champeau, whose brother, Oliver, died in the shipwreck, said he did not object to Mr. Shannon's use of the pictures as long as the body could not be identified.

"The remains should be treated reverently and with respect," said Mr. Champeau, of Marinette, Wis. "But the fact is the men have died; they're no longer there."

Mr. Shannon led a three-day, manned submarine expedition to the shipwreck in July 1994. There had been four previous visits to the ship using either miniature submarines or underwater robotic cameras.

But the Shannon team was the first to spot a body outside the ship on the lake bottom. Until then, all the missing crewmen were believed to have been entombed inside the wreckage.